from the just-a-suggestion dept

We see some pretty bizarre lawsuits at times around here, but Consumerist points us to one that takes bizarre lawsuits to a new level -- involving a guy suing an escort firm for almost getting him arrested, even though the potential arrest only came after he called the police himself, upset that the woman did not stay long enough. Apparently, a college student named Hubert Blackman went to Las Vegas last month and ordered a stripper to come to his room at the Stratosphere. He apparently paid $155 for a lap dance, and then an additional $120 for a sex act.

The next morning, he demanded a refund from the firm he had called for the stripper, saying she didn't stay the full hour he had paid for and also telling them that since he was drunk, he couldn't have legally agreed to the sex act. When the company refused, the guy called the police, who politely explained to him that he had broken the law in hiring a prostitute and that they should arrest him. Somehow, he avoided arrest, but rather than drop matters, he went back to New York and filed a lawsuit in which part of the complaint is that "I almost had gotten arrested," after "An escort did an illegal sexual act on me during her paid service to me." The guy even admits he knew that prostitution was illegal in Vegas. However, he's demanding the firm be shut down, his $275 back... and another $1.8 million for good measure. It kind of makes you wonder if he's going to actually get arrested this time...

from the nice-advertising dept

There was some news coverage last week of the UK's "equalities minister" (what the hell is that?), Harriet Harman, asking Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger to shut down a prostitute review site called Punternet. As many legal commentators pointed out, this was ridiculous for a variety of reasons -- neither Harman nor Schwargenegger had any legal authority to shut down such a site. However, the really ridiculous thing is that all this request did was give the site a ton of attention. In a press release response, Punternet took issue with many of Harman's claims about the site, and then at the end noted how much she had helped the site's traffic:

How much extra traffic did you get on 30 September, the day the story first broke?

One must assume that wasn't Harman's intention. But, honestly, it makes you wonder what sort of politician these days doesn't realize that calling for the shutting down of a site will only boost the traffic to that site by a considerable amount.

from the didn't-see-this-coming dept

Craigslist has been catching a lot of flack, but Twitter might be next in line for the blame game. A British tabloid discovered that a brothel in England was using the site to advertise its services, and got a quote from a member of parliament labeling it "cynical and inappropriate". It's hard to imagine that this is the only business of its sort using Twitter to stay in touch with its customers, and it just goes to show that whatever media emerge -- from printed flyers to web sites to social-networking sites -- they'll be used to promote any sort of business, including sex-based ones. The brothel's response to the newspaper article is pretty amusing, though: a Twitter coupon, using the paper's name as the discount code. In the meantime, expect to see law enforcement officials start attacking Twitter for "enabling prostitution" in 3... 2... 1....